How serious is the threat to sub-Saharan Africa posed by noncommunicable diseases? Consider 2 new findings by Hebe N. Gouda, University of Queensland, and colleagues in the Lancet Global Health. Using data from 1990 to 2017, they found:
September 4, 2019
Cancer, now the leading killer in wealthy countries, is on track to outpace cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death globally in the next few decades, according to research published yesterday in the Lancet.
August 13, 2019
It seems logical that large, long-living mammals would be more prone to cancer—they have more cells and more opportunities for dangerous mutations. But in a “quirk of nature” they actually die of cancer less frequently than their smaller cousins.
July 29, 2019
The yawning gap in child cancer survival between wealthy and poorer countries is fueled by a perception that treatment is too costly and complicated for low-resource settings. North American children with cancer now have a 5-year survival rate of 80%—while more than 80%…
June 26, 2019
In the last 2 decades, more than 30 countries moved from low-income to middle-income status, a billion people were lifted out of poverty, and there were major reductions in maternal and child mortality globally. Despite this progress, middle-income countries, where over 70…
June 25, 2019
A “whole-system failure” and “paternalism” in Irish health care resulted in some 208 women receiving false negative pap smear results. An agency outsourced screenings to unapproved labs, and authorities failed to notify patients when errors were found.
June 21, 2019
The WHO has highlighted the “unacceptably high” epilepsy treatment gap in a new report calling for solutions rooted in primary care.
June 10, 2019
While managing type 1 diabetes—perhaps the most life-threatening NCD—access to insulin is a matter of life and death. For the hundreds of millions of people living amid humanitarian crisis, the vast majority are being hosted in low-resource settings. This means the odds of…
May 20, 2019
Experts who want to move the needle on noncommunicable diseases have a few challenges. First among these is explaining the awkward umbrella term for a slew of diseases ranging from cancer and cardiovascular disease to diabetes and Alzheimer’s. To provide some outside-the…
May 20, 2019
Ellen Engle sees a pattern on the support group she runs on Facebook: Women “told they’re going through menopause or have irritable bowel syndrome”—when in fact they have ovarian cancer. Late diagnoses and lagging treatment advancements have meant high mortality rates for…